Blimey Studios wrote:
She's cute!

It's a shame that the fingers on her left have been amputated at the knuckle

Lol damnit that's all I can see now! I don't think it affects the picture too much though at least.  If it's good enough for Karlie Kloss it's good enough for me

Howard Tarragon wrote:
What is wrong with the photographers in your area? This is a beautiful portrait of a beautiful girl.

Lol no idea.  Actually now that I think about it she might have done some outside beauty-ish stuff last year but maybe she meant studio stuff  or stuff that was more retouched cause I remember when she asked to shoot she said she didn't have any beauty stuff for her portfolio and wanted to do that specifically.

cheshiredave wrote:
I am not at all an expert at beauty work, so please take this all with an appropriate number of grains of salt, but here are my reactions:

She's a lovely model with gorgeous eyes. I think the pose is good, as is the lighting. I have zero problems with the fingers.

Now the areas of issue for me: the skin on her face looks over-retouched to me. It is similar to the retouching on the comparison image you posted above, but I think that one works a little better because overall the contrast is much higher on that image and so it looks a bit unrealistic overall, which allows me to accept it on its own terms. Here, though, the hair feels more "real," so the heightening of drama on the face then looks (to me) out of sync with her hair. Speaking of her hair, the edge highlights look gray -- maybe that's how she actually looks, but in retouching I would probably get those to be a consistent color with the rest of her highlights.

Also, on your image you can see where the makeup (or retouching) ends on the side of her face (her left/our right). They look dull/unsaturated like the hair issue mentioned above. Perhaps the skin coverage zone just needs to be adjusted in your retouching software? (For that matter, perhaps that's the case with the hair too?)

Finally, the highlights on her nose feel too specular to me, especially compared to her forehead and shoulder.

Hope this helps, and hope I'm not talking out of my ass here. But I think all of these things could be fixed with retouching.

I think I can see what you're saying about the retouching.  The model didn't have the best skin or I donno if it's that I'm not as used to retouching darker skin but I probably went a little overboard trying to make everything evened out.  Oh and she actually wasn't wearing any foundation (long story that's how I've been shooting lately) but that lighter spot was already on her face and I figured it was just some result of the lighting or her face and though it face might look to flat if I fixed it but I could always go back and darken it pretty easy.

Thanks for the critique!

Julietsdream wrote:
*Gorgeous*...Love it...Love her skin tone..!!

Thanks!  It took so many adjustments layers to get it just perfect.  I haven't done beauty work with a darker skinned model in sooooo long because they're aren't many here fit for it and I was so excited!

Laura Bello wrote:

Lol damnit that's all I can see now! I don't think it affects the picture too much though at least.  If it's good enough for Karlie Kloss it's good enough for me

Absolutely beautiful! Lovely model, excellent skin tone, perfect lighting.
Who the hell goes through life with there fingers sticking strait out all the time???

SoftLights wrote:

Absolutely beautiful! Lovely model, excellent skin tone, perfect lighting.
Who the hell goes through life with there fingers sticking strait out all the time???

Thanks!  Haha and I can see how it would be even better if more her fingers were showing just a little bit but I don't think it ruins the picture or anything like that.

BJohnson415 wrote:
I would add another catch light in her eye.  Great shot indeed!

Like a second fake one or touch up the ones already there?  And thanks!

Jorge Kreimer wrote:
Her neck feels a little short to me. I like a portrait with abundant quantities of neck.
I find the lipstick color kind of ugly.
This is personal taste, but I always feel you do a little more Photoshop than what is necessary.

Otherwise, everything looks solid.

I totally agree about the neck I feel the same way about having long necks in images but I think I liked the pose enough otherwise where I let it slide.  I probably could've have done the pose better though really.  And I'm totally not an MUA I just wanted something fally for her to wear, plus the model has a proportionally lighter lower lip where it was distracting and I thought some dark lipstick would help.  This is why I never wear makeup myself I'm terrible with what colors go with what skintone :p.

Laura Bello wrote:

This is why I never wear makeup myself I'm terrible with what colors go with what skintone :p.

You should learn, or get a good stylist. Styling is 90%of the photo in beauty and fashion. It makes or breaks the picture.

Jorge Kreimer wrote:
...Styling is 90%of the photo in beauty and fashion. It makes or breaks the picture.

+1 QFT
A full team (hair and makeup) is a minimum baseline requirement for beauty genre...  and fashion mandates either a wardrobe stylist or clothing designer...

That said for one who has expressed they are only on Mayhem as a non commercial entity this rendering is a noteworthy enchanting effort...

However here are suggestions should desire to take your work to a commercial level.....
1. The dark hair seriously needs separation from the storm gray seamless... kickers are and industry standard for good reason... even a hair light from above could have provided much of the essential separation here.
2. While loop and short lighting are the workhorse of portraiture... Beauty genre is the realm of paramount (butterfly) illumination.
3. The lips are deformed (pressed inward) by the talent's fingers... always have the talent lightly pull back after touching their face.
4. This is not beauty genre... it is glamour... Black lace is decidedly neither germane nor appropriate for beauty genre... Wardrobe is rarely if ever a component in the mix for beauty... the only accessories for beauty are timepieces, jewelry, millinery and possibly a scarf...
5. The iris closes to the key light does not have a higher luminance value (it should)... albeit I love the amber glow...
6. As already mentioned... post processing has gone too far for beauty genre... Beauty is about skin texture, this image has been rendered way past that metric and is far more a glamour image.
7.  A tad too much arm here... beauty is about the face... crop it higher, k?  The face needs to dominate a beauty rendering.

What's to love here?
The drop shadow under the eye mirroring the dark brow adds delightfully to the facial symmetry...
The slightly parted lips without show teeth... not a easy thing to do... 
The near Rembrandt effect of your loop lighting... absolutely superb!   

Laura, have you considered taking on paid clients?  Believe with the resulting aggravation and agony of exceeding client expectations your attainment level will increase by an order of magnitude...  enough said...

Jorge Kreimer wrote:

You should learn, or get a good stylist. Styling is 90%of the photo in beauty and fashion. It makes or breaks the picture.

I've had MUA's on shoots before and they rarely give their two cents when it comes to what makeup works with what skin tone or what colors work or don't work, or at least I've never heard anyone make a similar statement, normally they just ask what I want and do it.  If they do give there opinion it's more often on shoots that are extremely creative, nothing classic or simple like this.  Also I've been shying away from having MUA's for tests because one of the few good ones in the area doesn't have a car and lives 45 minutes away and the other is constantly busy when I'm just testing can be a hassle to get someone.

On top of that I've had and seen tons of really bad makeup from local MUA's, even ones I like working with normally, so for tests I just skip it.

Hair stylists I like having but they're hard to book and there's only a few in the area.  I had a super creative beauty shoot a while ago and spent a month trying to find a stylist that was free the day the rest of the team was, in the end I had to do it myself because we were running close to a deadline.  So same thing, for tests I just skip it.

Laura Bello wrote:

I've had MUA's on shoots before and they rarely give their two cents when it comes to what makeup works with what skin tone or what colors work or don't work, or at least I've never heard anyone make a similar statement, normally they just ask what I want and do it.  If they do give there opinion it's more often on shoots that are extremely creative, nothing classic or simple like this.  Also I've been shying away from having MUA's for tests because one of the few good ones in the area doesn't have a car and lives 45 minutes away and the other is constantly busy when I'm just testing can be a hassle to get someone.

On top of that I've had and seen tons of really bad makeup from local MUA's, even ones I like working with normally, so for tests I just skip it.

Hair stylists I like having but they're hard to book and there's only a few in the area.  I had a super creative beauty shoot a while ago and spent a month trying to find a stylist that was free the day the rest of the team was, in the end I had to do it myself because we were running close to a deadline.  So same thing, for tests I just skip it.

I hear you. That's why it's good to get a handle on the basics. That way you can make these decisions.

Thomas Eric wrote:
+1 QFT
A full team (hair and makeup) is a minimum baseline requirement for beauty genre...  and fashion mandates either a wardrobe stylist or clothing designer...

That said for one who has expressed they are only on Mayhem as a non commercial entity this rendering is a noteworthy enchanting effort...

However here are suggestions should desire to take your work to a commercial level.....
1. The dark hair seriously needs separation from the storm gray seamless... kickers are and industry standard for good reason... even a hair light from above could have provided much of the essential separation here.
2. While loop and short lighting are the workhorse of portraiture... Beauty genre is the realm of paramount (butterfly) illumination.
3. The lips are deformed (pressed inward) by the talent's fingers... always have the talent lightly pull back after touching their face.
4. This is not beauty genre... it is glamour... Black lace is decidedly neither germane nor appropriate for beauty genre... Wardrobe is rarely if ever a component in the mix for beauty... the only accessories for beauty are timepieces, jewelry, millinery and possibly a scarf...
5. The iris closes to the key light does not have a higher luminance value (it should)... albeit I love the amber glow...
6. As already mentioned... post processing has gone too far for beauty genre... Beauty is about skin texture, this image has been rendered way past that metric and is far more a glamour image.
7.  A tad too much arm here... beauty is about the face... crop it higher, k?  The face needs to dominate a beauty rendering.

What's to love here?
The drop shadow under the eye mirroring the dark brow adds delightfully to the facial symmetry...
The slightly parted lips without show teeth... not a easy thing to do... 
The near Rembrandt effect of your loop lighting... absolutely superb!   

Laura, have you considered taking on paid clients?  Believe with the resulting aggravation and agony of exceeding client expectations your attainment level will increase by an order of magnitude...  enough said...

1. I have used a hair light before, I only have two lights so I can't do a kicker set up, but next time I work with a model with darker hair I'll try this, I guess I just thought it would make it look too commercial and wanted to keep things simpler.

2. I use butterfly lighting allllll the time for my beauty work, I just wanted something different and I can see how it's the standard but I don't really think it's wrong to use loupe lighting for beauty work, at least I've seen it in other professionals work.

3. Will watch out for pressing on the lips.

4. Same thing as #2, while I think it's the standard not to have wardrobe in beauty shots I've seen many images on photographers site categorized under 'beauty' and they have full wardrobe.  For this image I simple had her wear a bralette because I wanted to crop out but she didn't want to be nude.  Maybe it's the lace that makes it seem more glamour and I should've used something more plain to cover her instead.

6. Maybe I'm getting my references from a bad place but I swear I see people retouching skin in similar ways, especially for cosmetic ads. I'm not saying I couldn't retouch less and still have it be fine I just didn't think this type of retouching was 'bad'.  Or maybe I just can't see that other images are less retouched I donno :p

7. Agree it might work better cropped it tighter, I just always do that and I wanted something a little farther back is all.

Thanks you for the in depth critique, some of your points were very helpful.

lukezsmith wrote:
Laura I love all of your work, one of my favourite photographers on here, and I want to get my work to your standard.

Would you mind running through the lighting setup for this?

Sure no problem!  Its a 24'x32' bowens softbox attached to a Lumapro 160 flash set at half power.  I positioned the light about 5 ft away and raised slightly above the model and tilted downward just so there's a catch light in the corner of her eye, the light was moved to the right slightly just to get nice loupe lighting (you can see the shadow on her nose that shows this).  I had a small open window almost directly in front of her about 9 ft away but I'm not sure how much that affected the light, I just leave it open because I don't have a modeling light and otherwise it's too dark in the room.  Hope that helps!

Ashley Holloway wrote:
This is gorgeous, especially the skin tone! I see no need for a hair light for this image (this is fashion, not a school portrait and there's plenty of contrast) and I rather like the lipstick color (purples and berries are very in for fall).  I also don't think it looks like you amputated her fingers

Yay I love when we run into each other on MM!  And thanks for the critique!  I feel like I was nervous something was wrong with it because it did terrible on my image sharing sites compared to my other recent work but maybe it was just weird random luck or that I'm just posting too many test shots in general.  Who knows :p

Laura Bello wrote:
Well new to me at least, this girl has been modeling for about a year and has never had any beauty/portrait work before.  Just looking for some feedback

Just my opinion:)  Close ups are pretty challenging This particular shot in contrast proportions models hand seems distracting  overall balance Though a different pose or angle could have work better for me    Personally I try to keep my awareness' in tack specially head close ups can lead physical parts is a false perception. I hope my critic not offending

HarryL wrote:

Just my opinion:)  Close ups are pretty challenging This particular shot in contrast proportions models hand seems distracting  overall balance Though a different pose or angle could have work better for me    Personally I try to keep my awareness' in tack specially head close ups can lead physical parts is a false perception. I hope my critic not offending

Editing is grainy hand & lips need to be more refined also the cropping on lower models arm expose part of the body that don't seem correct.